With the title “Phosphorus plant removal from European agricultural land” the researchers Panos Panagos, Anna Muntwyler, Leonidas Liakos, Pascual Borrelli, Irene Biavetti, Maria Bogoños and Emmanuel Lugato have published a more than interesting article in the “Journal of Consumer Protection and Food Safety”.

The interest of this the article lies in the fact that the authors evaluate the importance of phosphorus in the growth and development of plants within the new European framework “Farm To Fork” whose objectives are the significant reduction in the use of fertilizers.

Phosphorus is one of the most important nutrients for the growth and production of crops, and in excessive use it becomes a contaminant. It is clear that the European Commission has a handicap in reducing fertilizers and maintaining food security for Europeans.

The objective of this interesting research was to estimate the removal of P from soils by harvesting crops andeliminationof crop residues. Specifically, we attempted to estimate P removal taking into account production area and productivity rates of 37 crops for 220 regions of the European Union and the United Kingdom (41.5% of the planet’s surface).

And for this, the most extensive soil surface database in Europe was used (Land Use/Cover Area frame Survey ;LUCAS), and analysing the physical and chemical properties of 20,000 samples every three years.

And, personally, one of the most interesting contributions of this article, is that it makes a revision of the phosphorus cycle in the crop and the soil; as well as the importance of agricultural regions that we must know.

Conclusion

Again, when on the CONSOLE blog we recommend a scientific article, we recommend direct consultation. That’s Why, we will not disclose the results of the investigation. However, if we dare to point out that cereals and vegetables they are the crops with the highest P elimination rate; as opposed to fruit crops.

But, as we have just commented, there are regional differences, with the greatest P losses occurring in the northwestern regions of Europe as opposed to the Mediterranean regions and southeastern EU.

The value of the information presented by the researchers is that it allows the improvement in decision-making of the CAP policies in relation to the use of fertilizers.

Today is International Women’s Day, and we want to celebrate it by congratulating and acknowledging the work of our female colleagues from the CONSOLE project.
These are 34 recognized women researchers who provide added value in the research that we are carrying out in this research project; as well as other scientific contributions.

For centuries, hundreds of brilliant women’s minds were silenced because of their gender (e.g., Mileva Marić, Marie Curie, Rita Levi-Montalcini, and so on). However, many of the great discoveries of science were and are their work. Despite the fact that discrimination against women wreaked havoc in all spheres, social, political, personal… One of the most discriminatory fields has been the scientific field.

We want to pay a small tribute with this gallery to all those scientific women who accompany us every day in the CONSOLE project, and without their contribution we would not have been able to achieve the objectives that we set at the beginning. We want to pay a small tribute with this gallery to all those scientific women who accompany us every day in the CONSOLE project, and without their contribution we would not have been able to achieve the objectives that we set at the beginning.

An investment of more than 110 million of euros is the latest approval of the European Commission in the projects of the LIFE program, the tool that has been in operation since 1992 to protect the care of the environment and the climate in the EU. The projects of this call contribute to the ecological recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic and support the objectives established in the European Green Deal

The projects approved on this occasion have been selected after a call for proposals that was made in 2020. Czechia, Cyprus, Denmark, Slovenia, Estonia, Finland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Poland are the eleven EU countries where these investments will be ‘injected’.

LIFE, an opportunity

The European Green Deal serves to provide direct support to projects across the EU and restores nature to entire regions and countries.

The integrated projects of the LIFE Program are one of the main tools to make the ecological transition a reality by introducing concrete changes in practice.

Conservation objectives

The projects chosen by the EU have certain objectives to meet. The first of these is a project in France that pursues nature conservation, introducing measures to halt and reverse the decline of biodiversity in the Grand East region by creating three pilot forest areas. A second project will mitigate the adverse effects of human activities that threaten Finland’s marine and coastal biodiversity and improve the management of the national network of marine protected areas.

In terms of air quality, a Polish project will use measures to improve the overall air quality in the Silesia region, which has one of the most polluted atmospheres in Europe, by replacing small domestic solid-fuel heating appliances with less polluting alternatives. 

With regard to waste prevention and resource recovery, in Cyprus, a project will aim to improve infrastructure and collection systems for recyclable and biodegradable waste. In Latvia, separate waste collection and reuse of municipal waste will be improved. For its part, in Denmark, a project will work on the prevention of waste and the creation of better regulations on waste. Slovenia will be the country where a project will seek to achieve a higher percentage of recycling of non-hazardous waste from construction and demolition, among other measures.

Organic agriculture is a production system that, through the rational management of natural resources, without the use of chemical synthesis products, provides healthy and abundant food, maintains or increases soil fertility and biological diversity.

It must be recognized that its appearance and expansion through the spacious agricultural and It is the result of the individual action of farmers.

The Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and IFOAM – Organics International have published a report entitled “The World of Organic Agriculture Statistics and Emerging Trends 2022”; where they have collected and analysed data from different sources in order to know the status and evolution of organic agriculture in the world. The first thing that the publication tells us is that the surface of organic farming has followed the growing trend, reaching a new record for the year 2020.

Globally, in 2020 it was achieved that the1.6% of the world’s agricultural land were organic. The highest organic shares of total agricultural land, by region, were in Oceania (9.7 %) and in Europe (3.4 %; European Union: 9.2 %).

More than 74.9 million hectares of organic agricultural land were registered in 2020, in which are included areas under conversion. Regions with the largest areas of organic farmland were Oceania (35.9 million hectares, nearly half of the world’s organic farmland) and Europe (17.1 million hectares, 23 %); Latin America had 9.9 million hectares (13.3 %), followed by Asia (6.1 million hectares, 8.2 %); North America (3.7 million hectares, 5.0 %) and Africa (2.1 million hectares, %).

By countries, those more organic farmland of the worldwide were placed in Australia (35.7 million hectares), Argentina (4.5 million hectares) and Uruguay (2.7 million hectares)

What are the main crops?

This interesting report informs us that more than two-thirds of the 74.9 million hectares of organic farmland in 2020 were grassland (more than 50.8 million hectares). The area of ​​arable land (arable land with 13.1 million hectares and permanent crops with 5.2 million hectares) constituted 18.4 million hectares, which represented about a quarter of the organic agricultural land.

But if you want to know the crops by continent, we highlight recommend that you consult the documentation directly.

What main products are consumed in the EU?

At the end of 2020, 14.9 million hectares of agricultural land in the European Union (14.9 million hectares) were managed organically by almost 350,000 farmers. In the EU, 9.2 percent of agricultural land was organic. Of these, we can highlight to the countries with the largest organic agriculture areas were France (2.5 million hectares), Spain (2.4 million hectares) and Italy (2.1 million hectares).

Although the growth of the EU organic Agri-food market increased, imports of organic Agri-food products decreased slightly between 2019 and 2020. Nevertheless, in 2020, 2.79 million metric tons of organic Agri-food products were imported (1, 9 less than the 2.85 million MT imported in 2019).

Among these products, there was an increase in imports of organic tropical fruits and rice, which was offset by lower imports of other cereals, oil cakes and sugar. The ranking of top trading partners also changed, with China and Ukraine is losing their top spots to Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.

It is also worth noting that the main importing and consuming EU Member States in 2020 were the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium..

Hopeful data

There is no doubt that the data is encouraging and that the growing trend of organic farming spaces seems to continue to grow over the years; which is obviously due to the fact that users are increasingly demanding healthier foods for their families.

As we have seen in several case studies of the CONSOLE project, the contractual relationships between farmers, public administrations; as well as with private sectors, it will allow the promotion and growth of both sustainable products and rural torritories of EU (and also beyond aur boundaries).

And as an example, is the case of study “Carta del Mulino” where has introduced a value chain contract solution for farmers supplying in common wheat to the mark of the famous company of Barilla, must comply with ten rules (ISCC PLUS certification to preserve biodiversity, crop rotation, minimum percentage of area allocated to flowers, selection of specific varieties, certified seeds, no use of neonicotinoids, no use of glyphosate, batch segregation and traceability, batch storage. separated from other production, added value distributed throughout the supply chain)..

We will describe more case studies in the following publications.